He was ready; she wasn’t. By the time she got ready, he had become comfortable with the way things were. Admittedly, she was scared of marriage. The examples she saw growing up left her cynical and frustrated about marriage. Her parents divorced. Her grandparents divorced. Her aunts and uncles divorced. Now the cousins she grew up with are divorcing. Her boyfriend’s dad was a rolling stone. His grandfather was a rolling stone. His uncles are all rolling stones. Now, she’s paranoid about her boyfriend sleeping around town just like the other men in his family. With a track record like that, why would anyone believe in marriage?
When you look at your family history, what do you see? For some, their parents have been happily married for 40 or 50 years. They have positive stories and images to help guide them along the marriage journey. This is the case with me and my husband. His parents have been married for 42 years, and before my father passed, he and my mom were married for 43 years. This history of solid marriages on both sides of our families is a blessing for sure, although it doesn’t guarantee that our marriage will be the same. We still have to work at it.
For others, family marital history reveals a few more struggles. Divorce, single parent households, teenage pregnancies, and unhappy marriages can cause you to become cynical about love. Maybe you fall into this category, where your parents tried their best (or maybe they didn’t), but they could never get marriage to work out. Strong marriages are few and far between in your blood line. So, here you are. You know that’s not what you want for your life, but you are scared. You wonder: Is it too much to ask to fall in love, get married, and stay married. . .happily?
Actually, no. It’s not too much to ask. It can be done if you are determined to break the cycle.
Breaking the cycle requires the courage to change. You must be willing to change your environment. If you hang around failed marriages, people who cheat, wives who talk bad about their husbands, or husbands who don’t value their wives, that negativity will rub off on you. This goes for your relatives, too. If they don’t respect your desire for a strong marriage, or if they are content with repeating the family cycle, then you might have to change how you relate to them. You can love your family but dislike their ways. So spend time with them at family gatherings and love them as you should. Just make sure you are around other couples who are committed to marriage like you are.
Breaking the cycle requires positive messages. You can’t take in the same negative messages that you have heard for years: all men cheat; women are gold diggers; marriages don’t last; there’s no harm in a little something on the side; things get worse after the wedding; she’ll trap you into marriage; he’ll never commit. Messages like those are the reason websites like BlackandMarriedwithKids.com are so important. They counter the negative with the positive but don’t brush over the challenges that couples face. You have to set positive expectations for your marriage because, if all you know and believe about marriage is negative, then that’s what you will live out in your life.
Breaking the cycle requires faith. If God has put you together with someone, then you have to have faith that things will work out. You have to know deep in your heart that your love will stand the test of time. When struggles and setbacks happen, you have to have faith in the other person, faith in yourself, and faith in God that you will see better days. Married couples who truly love each other and have successful marriages on several levels say that faith is key. You can’t let doubt or fear keep you from trusting and from moving forward. There is no telling how wonderful or how successful your marriage can be when faith and love hold the two of you together.
Look back at your family history and consider whether or not you want to continue the cycle that you inherited or if you want to set a new standard for your marriage and for your children. If you have a positive family legacy with strong marriages, then count it a blessing and continue to build on the examples that your parents and grandparents left you. If your family legacy is not so positive in terms of marriage, then learn from the history so you don’t repeat it. Long-lasting, happy, and faithful marriages do exist. You can have one. You just have to be willing to put in the hard word to make it happen.
BMWK family, what do you see when you look at your family legacy of marriage? What have you learned (positive and negative) from your family history?